Dangerous Currents
by setepenre-set
Summary: Roxanne is a small town librarian who dreams of being a reporter. When she comes into the possession of something that appears to be directions to the hidden treasure of Great Lakes pirate Dan Seavey, she entertains wild hopes of finding enough money to fund her own newspaper. What she actually finds is a blue merperson. And trouble. A lot of trouble.
1. Chapter 1

**_"All of us an ample share of the treasure, and used it wisely or foolishly, according to our nature."_**

Roxanne blinked at the last sentence of the book, and then frowned.

She hadn't remembered the story ending so abruptly.

No—no, surely there should be a description of what they had chosen to do with their shares of the treasure.

Roxanne had read the book before, though, admittedly, not this copy. Great Aunt Rachel had always been adamant that this book was not for reading, especially by reckless little girls who couldn't be trusted to know the value of a book.

Some days, Roxanne suspected herself of having become a librarian specifically to spite Great Aunt Rachel—though of course, the job at the library was only temporary, until Roxanne managed to get enough money together to start publishing the newspaper.

Great Aunt Rachel hadn't known about Roxanne's plan for her paper—perhaps that was why she'd willed the book to Roxanne, after her death.

Roxanne had been surprised, to say the least. But then, perhaps by becoming a librarian, she had somehow managed to accidentally impress, instead of annoy, the old woman. A rather irritating thought.

Great Aunt Rachel been given the book, she was fond of telling anyone who couldn't get away quick enough, by one of her patients back in Peshtigo, before he'd had to go into a nursing home. She'd been the kinds of nurse that stays with people in their homes. Evidently, this patient, Dan Seavey, had, in his younger days, been a sort of sailor on Lake Michigan.

And he'd been arrested (wrongly, Great Aunt Rachel insisted), on the charge of piracy.

He'd been found innocent, and had eventually been employed by the government, then later retired and moved to a town in Wisconsin.

He'd given Great Aunt Rachel the book, she said, as a thank you, and also (at this point in the story, Great Aunt Rachel always looked arch) because he'd rather taken a fancy to her. Great Aunt Rachel had always been a handsome woman.

So the book had come to Great Aunt Rachel via her accused pirate, and then to Roxanne after her great aunt's death, and now it was, quite soon, going to become the property of Lady Scott, the richest woman in Metro City.

It had been very lucky, Roxanne thought, that she'd accepted young Wayne Scott's invitation to come to the Scotts' May Day picnic. Otherwise she might never have spoken to Lady Scott. They'd gotten onto the subject of lake piracy, somehow, and Roxanne had mentioned her great aunt's association with Dan Seavey. Lady Scott had been terribly interested, especially when Roxanne mentioned that she had a book that had once been his. Evidently, lake pirates in general, and Dan Seavey in particular, were one of Lady Scott's pet interests. She'd offered to buy the book then and there, for a price that was, Roxanne thought, extremely exciting.

If she managed to scrape together a bit more money, after selling the book, she might have enough to fix the old letterpress machine that stood in the corner of her bedroom. And when she got the letterpress machine working—

—The Metro City Reporter. Six pages, two cents, bi-weekly publication plus special editions as need arose.

The thought of giving up the book gave Roxanne no pangs of regret; she had her own copy of Treasure Island. She'd chosen to read Great Aunt Rachel's copy tonight, before handing it over to Lady Scott simply because her great aunt had never allowed her to read it when she was a child and she relished the chance to break that rule at last.

Besides, it was a good book, well worth re-reading.

…but that final page didn't seem right somehow. No, it didn't seem right at all.

Roxanne went to the bookshelf, pulled down her own, more beloved copy of Treasure Island, and flipped to the last page.

Yes, she was right; there was the description of what they did with their portions of the treasure. Great Aunt Rachel's copy must be missing a page.

Roxanne replaced her copy on the shelf and went to her desk to examine the other copy. Damn; she'd told Lady Scott that the book was in excellent condition. Was Lady Scott liable to notice that the story ended too abruptly? Roxanne thought not—perhaps she could get away with not telling Lady Scott about the missing page?

Except—Roxanne, looking down at the book, frowned.

There was no space for a missing page; the page with the line about ample shares was pasted to the inside of the back cover. Had one of the previous owners noticed the book was damaged and tried to repair it?

Roxanne ran her fingertips over the last page—and then her frown deepened.

That was strange. There was something underneath the pasted page. A small square of folded paper, it felt like. What on earth…?

She hesitated a moment, and then her curiosity won out over her better sense and she picked up the sharp knife she used for book repair from her desk. Carefully, she inserted the tip of it beneath one edge of the pasted page and then, still carefully, she sliced downward and around the edge of the paper, cutting the page from the back of the book.

It came up fairly easily; whoever had glued it down had only put paste around the edges of it, leaving the middle clear. There was only a faint stain of paste in a border around the edge of the last page and around the inside of the cover.

And there was, indeed, a folded piece of paper.

It was yellowed and looked rather old; Roxanne picked it up with care and delicately unfolded it.

There was writing on the page; a sort of list divided into two vertical columns placed side by side. The first column seemed to be a list of locations, some of them actual place names and some of them just vague descriptions of a general area.

The second column was a bit harder to understand; most of it appeared to be objects of some kind: cloth, jewels, money—usually there were several objects listed in the second column next to each location.

One of the entries in the second column caught her eye, though, because one of the words listed did not fit with the other objects.

The entry read:

 ** _Pearls, feathers, chimera._**

Chimera? A chimera was a mythical monster, made up of the parts of different animals. What was the word chimera doing listed next to feathers and pearls?

 _Chimera_.

Her eyes moved over to the associated entry in the first column—perhaps there might be some clue there…

 _ **Cave. Smugglers' Cove.**_

She took a sharp breath. Smugglers' Cove.

There was a Smugglers' Cove here, in Metro City. That was what everyone in town always called it, that odd little inlet that nobody bothered trying to get to because of the difficulty involved.

She wasn't sure if there was a cave in Smugglers' Cove, but—

—but certainly there was no proof that there wasn't a cave, and if there was a cave, then—!

 _(Pearls. Feathers. Chimera.)_

Roxanne folded the list up carefully in its original creases and, after a moment's thought, placed it in the drawer where she kept her stockings and lingerie.

Lady Scott was only paying for the book, after all. There had been nothing said about any list.

* * *

It was cold down on the shoreline, Roxanne knew, even in late spring. She put on her warmest woolen stockings when she dressed in the morning, and wore a coat and scarf as well.

"You're very bundled up today, Miss Ritchi," Lady Scott said pleasantly, after the book and the money—so much money!—had changed hands and a polite cup of tea had been drank by each of them. "I do hope you're not feeling ill," she continued.

"Oh, no," Roxanne laughed. "It's my day off today, and I thought I might go for a walk down by the lake."

"Ah, of course," Lady Scott said, smiling, her hands stroking absently down the spine of the book in her lap (she hadn't put it down since Roxanne had handed it to her), "have a pleasant walk, then."

* * *

It was not, really, a pleasant walk, but then, Roxanne thought, that was probably fortunate—it meant no one else was walking near the shoreline's edge.

So there was no one to ask inconvenient questions when Roxanne moved to the mostly-unused end of the beach, or when she scrambled up over the big, slippery boulders that divided the main part of the shoreline from Smugglers' Cove.

Or when she tore the knee of one of her stockings climbing down the rocks to the other side.

Roxanne was a more than a little out of breath by the time she made it down to the ground again, and she knew she must be flushed. It wasn't simply the exertion, though, she admitted as she picked her way along the rocky shoreline towards the cliff face to look for any sign of a cave—it was also the excitement. She felt like a child again, and not just because of the torn stocking.

Roxanne was quite a young woman, still. And besides, hers was the sort of soul that craves adventure no matter the age of the body. Her place as Metro City's librarian was a good one, but it was sadly lacking in adventure.

Well, Roxanne thought gleefully, she was certainly having an adventure now.

Of course she knew she wasn't actually likely to find anything. There must be dozens of little inlets called "Smugglers' Cove" scattered all over the shoreline of the great lake—it wasn't exactly an uncommon name. And there was nothing to show that Dan Seavey—for Roxanne had decided, in her own mind that the writer of the list had indeed been Dan Seavey—had meant that the treasure was hidden in this particular smugglers cove.

For she had also, in her own mind, decided that there must be treasure. If you were going to have pirates, then you might as well have treasure. Pity the paper was a list, rather than an actual map, which would have been much more romantic.

True, the feathers seemed a bit odd, and the note about chimera seemed very odd—but pearls were pearls. And she was extremely curious as to what Seavey could have meant when he wrote chimera.

Roxanne searched the cliff face for a quarter of an hour before, at last, she found the crack.

It was not, she admitted to herself as she eyed the crack, the ideal cave entrance. She'd be able to fit, but only if she turned sideways, which seemed rather worrying to Roxanne—what if she got stuck?

( _Local Librarian Lost_ , Roxanne thought, picturing the headline on a newspaper. _Metro City Citizens Fear the Worst._ )

But Roxanne was certainly not the type to let a bit of danger deter her from the promise of pirate treasure in a secret cave, and so she squeezed into the crack in the cliff face.

The narrow passage went on for some time, turning gradually to the right, so that, as she moved further from the entrance, it began to get darker. She had thought to bring an electric torch, though—Roxanne believed in doing an adventure correctly—and she pulled this from the pocket of her coat now and switched it on.

The passage ended not six feet further along, opening up into a wider area, about the size of her bedroom in the library apartment, and the ceiling was high enough that she did not need to stoop.

The walls of this room were honeycombed with different openings, quite a few of them large enough to allow for a person to walk or crawl through.

And nothing to show which one of them she was meant to go through to find the treasure.

Roxanne damned the writer of the list in her mind—why couldn't they have written more clear directions? Did they really have that good a memory, to be able to recall the exact hole they needed in this particular cave?

Oh, but surely they hadn't, Roxanne thought in frustration, surely the writer's memory couldn't have been that good, because otherwise the wouldn't have needed to write the list at all!

She turned back to the opening she had just stepped through, the one that led out to the lake. If she was going to explore one or more of these tunnels, she would need to make some sort of mark to let her know which of them would definitely lead her back to the safety of the beach. She had no intention of getting lost down here.

Roxanne bent and picked up a stone from the cave floor, then straightened up again intending to scratch a mark—

—and saw that somebody already had.

There was a neat X marked onto the cave wall, right at eye level, in white chalk.

Roxanne's breath caught. So someone had been down here—and perhaps that someone really was the writer of the list.

And if they had marked this tunnel, the way out, then they might very well have marked the tunnel that led in—

It took some looking, but she did find it, eventually, another mark, again at eye level and in white chalk, next to a different opening.

This mark was not just an X; it was a pair of letters. Initials.

 _D. S._

Roxanne covered her mouth to hold back a laugh of pure, amazed shock.

D. S.

 _Dan Seavey._

She hadn't, she realized, ever thought that any of this would actually be real. It had been a sort of game, pretending to herself that this might be the Smugglers' Cove of the list, that this might be the cave of a pirate, that there might be treasure.

But now—looking at the initials on the cave wall, Roxanne realized, for the first time, that all of that might really be true.

She took a steadying breath—and then another—and then she stepped through the hole marked with Dan Seavey's initials.

There was another passageway, this one leading steadily downwards. At first she able to walk comfortably, but after a while, she was forced to stoop, and then, at last, to crawl.

Fear and doubt welled up inside her as she moved to her hands and knees. The thought of getting stuck was more frightening than ever, and this couldn't—couldn't really be what she was hoping.

Of course it couldn't.

But she kept moving forward, anyway. She'd come this far, and she was damned if she was going to turn back before she absolutely had to.

Her determination was soon rewarded; the passage widened again, and Roxanne rose to her feet with relief.

As she moved forward now, she could hear the sound of water—dripping and also a rushing noise, like a river flowing.

The passage rounded a bend and then opened up into a great, dark cavern.

Although the cavern itself was dark, the ceiling, high above her head, glowed softly blue—bioluminescence, of course; moss or insects or something.

There was a large pool in the center of the cavern, and it, too, glowed gently blue. And at the edge of the pool, there was—

Roxanne blinked.

Furniture.

Furniture that had been set up as if in a sitting room. Lots of rugs, all different patters, layered over top of each other, arranged with their edges overlapping, and one long rug that led down to the edge of the pool. A low table, with a single stool—and a pair of odd, low divans, covered with pillows.

A low bookshelf, with books on it—and another low shelf that contained—

Roxanne moved closer, stepping onto the rugs—stepping into the 'room', and shone her electric torch over it all.

The other shelf contained tools; a small saw, a hammer, a box of nails—wrenches and pliers and all kinds of things. Which explained the furniture, she supposed, seeing the rough edges of the shelf, examining the way everything was made of small pieces of wood that had been cunningly fitted together. Whoever had made this 'room' had carried everything here in pieces, and then assembled it themselves.

Roxanne knelt down to look at the books.

(The complete works of Jane Austen, a biology textbook, a slim volume about botany, several pulp novels, and a dictionary.)

There was an orb made of overlapping bits of metal standing on the shelf next to the books. It was about the size and shape of an ostrich egg, but flat on one end, so that it could sit safely on the shelf. At the top of it, there was a little brass ball. Roxanne placed one fingertip on the brass ball absently, and then jerked her hand back in shock as, with the sound of gears turning, the orb folded open, the pieces of metal blooming like a flower.

It was a flower, she realized, staring. The inside of the orb had been painted a vibrant pink color, to mimic the petals of a flower, and there was a metal rod standing at the center of the petals, topped, still, with the brass ball—pistil and stamen. She reached out and hesitantly touched the brass ball again, and—click click click—the petals folded up again into the orb.

Roxanne looked around the rest of the room, noticing all of the numerous metal trinkets that were scattered throughout it.

Something that looked a bit like an elaborate toy train set had been assembled on the floor near her left knee. There was a flat metal box, about three inches high and three feet wide, and atop this, a track wound wound around a group of nine little metal pillars. The pillars were, like the orb, made overlapping metal pieces, and something that might have once been the engine car of a toy train stood waiting on the tracks.

There was a brass ball on top of the toy train's smoke stack. Roxanne reached out a finger and touched it.

She was prepared for the sound of clockwork, this time, but instead there was music—tinny music, like the kind that might come from a music box, but was actually issuing from the little metal pillars. As the music played, the train's wheels started to turn and it began to move along the track. And as the train moved past each of the metal pillars, they unfolded—not into petals, like the orb, but into branches, painted green.

"Trees," Roxanne whispered. "Singing trees."

Behind her, there was a splash.

She turned suddenly, her heart in her mouth, swinging her torch around, the beam of white light hitting the surface of the pool.

"Who's there?" she said, her voice echoing in the emptiness of the cavern.

The music of the mechanical trees wound down, leaving the cavern in silence.

Slowly, very slowly, Roxanne rose to her feet. It struck her all at once, how very, entirely strange the little false room was, and suddenly the wonderful little mechanical toys, the furniture, the books—suddenly it all seemed menacing.

There were ripples on the surface of the pool.

Another splash, back near where the lake met the far wall of the cave. Roxanne jerked her torch up in the direction of the sound. It was too far for the torch light, though, all she could see was a vague, dark shape.

A dark shape—and eyes. Huge, inhuman eyes that shone green in the light of the torch like the eyes of a cat.

( _tapeta lucida_ , babbled Roxanne's mind, entirely unhelpfully. _that's what makes eyes glow like that in the dark._ People _don't have tapeta lucida; that's why their eyes don't—_ )

"Run," the dark shape said, and Roxanne saw the flash of sharp white teeth.

She reached behind herself, feeling for the metal orb, not taking her eyes away from the dark shape.

Her fingers closed on the orb and she picked it up, feeling the weight of it, wishing it was heavier, wishing she had a real weapon.

The dark shape—moved. It was a slithering, sinuous motion that sent more ripples across the surface of the pool.

"Run," it said again.

(but Roxanne knew, oh, she knew in her heart, in her bones, that if she turned her back on the dark shape to run, it would dart forward and—)

She lifted the orb, feeling herself trembling.

"No," she said.

There was a long silence; Roxanne could feel her heartbeat against her ribs, in her wrists, in her throat.

"—please run," the dark shape said.

And Roxanne—stared harder into the shadows at its tone.

(pleading. fear. it was—it was afraid of her. It was afraid of her.)

"No," she said, her voice shaking a little less than before. "No, I'm not going to run."

"Please," it whispered, drawing back. "Please, you have to run. You have to. Please."

Roxanne took a step forward.

"No," she said, and took another step forward, then another, and another, until she was standing at the edge of the water.

She could almost make out a form, now, in the shadow around the green eyes, but she still wasn't quite close enough.

Roxanne held the metal orb threateningly, just in case the creature should think of lunging for her. She heard it take a quick, sharp breath.

"No!" it says. "No, don't—you'll break it!"

Roxanne blinked, glanced at the orb in her hand.

Break it?

(the careful, painstaking craftsmanship of the mechanical toys. Was the creature the one who—)

"It's one of my favorites," the creature said in a small, wavering voice. "Please don't break it."

Roxanne swallowed hard.

"Come into the light," she said, "and I won't."

There was a long moment of silence, and then the dark shape sank down beneath the water, disappearing.

One heartbeat—two—Roxanne thought of running—

And then—

The creature rose slowly up through the dark water in front of her, moving with that sinuous, alien grace to the edge of the pool and into the shallows.

Into the light, where Roxanne could see it.

The top half of the creature's body was almost human, but the proportions were odd—the arms and neck too long and thin, the smooth, hairless head too large and strangely shaped.

There was—there was a sort of delicate, upstanding membrane, a kind of frill, on either side of the creature's head, going from the base of its neck to the back of its head. Smaller frills on its shoulders, webbing between its too-long fingers, and more webbing—fins?—along the bottom of its forearms. The creature had gills on either side of its ribcage and its skin was blue, an impossible sky blue.

And the lower half of its body—

(Roxanne understood now, why it moved the way it did in the shadows on the other side of the lake.)

The lower half of its body—

—it had a tail. Was a tail, the kind of tail that fish have, except there were no scales, just that smooth, flawless blue of its skin. Two fins on the lower half of its body—ventral, Roxanne's mind supplied dazedly; ventral fins. And the whole thing ended in two large caudal fins, just like the tail of a fish would.

It was—it was absolutely the most alien thing that Roxanne had ever seen in her life.

And it was absolutely, entirely beautiful.

Chimera, she thought. That's why the paper said chimera.

She took a deep, unsteady breath.

The chimera flinched, shoulders curving inwards. Its neck and shoulder frills curved, too, folding in towards its body, and then out, like the leaves of a sensitive plant touched by an un-careful hand.

"Have you come to take my skin?" it asked.

* * *

. _..to be continued._

* * *

 ** _notes:_** _Dan Seavey was a real person, the only person ever arrested on a charge of piracy on the Great Lakes-and he did, in fact, retire and move to Peshtigo Wisconsin, and then later go into a nursing home._

 _He was arrested for piracy in 1908; Great Aunt Rachel's connection with him sets Dangerous Currents around 1928._

 _The line quoted at the beginning is, of course, from Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson._


	2. Chapter 2

"What?" Roxanne said, shock making her voice loud.

The word echoed against the cavern walls, and the chimera flinched again, its large, inhumanly luminous eyes fixed on Roxanne.

"My skin," the creature said, without looking away from her, and Roxanne saw that it trembled slightly as it spoke, a rippling shiver like wind over the surface of water, "have you come to take it?"

"No," Roxanne said, "no, of course I haven't come to take your skin. Why on earth would I want to take your skin?"

The metal orb was still in her hand; Roxanne was uncertain, now, as to whether she should lower it, whether she should try to seem less frightening—

"Isn't that what people like you do," the chimera said, "to people like me?"

It watched her, eyes flickering from her face to the orb in her hand, and Roxanne took a quick, painful breath.

(isn't that what people like you do to people like me?)

The chimera's teeth were no less sharp than they had been moments ago, the tapeta lucida shine of its eyes no less inhuman, but Roxanne nevertheless felt a swift pulse of shame at having threatened the thing.

"—not—not people like me," Roxanne said.

The chimera's tail moved very slightly, fins fluttering in the water. It did not look away from her. Roxanne swallowed.

"…may I have my flower back, please?" the chimera asked.

"I—" Roxanne glanced at the ball in her hand.

The creature did not seem as if it were about to attack her, but that might be a trick, to lull her suspicions. Or perhaps it did care about this little toy she held, and wanted to get it back and safe before it turned its attention to attacking Roxanne.

She looked back at the chimera, who looked back at her from the shallows of the pool.

"Yes," Roxanne said. "You can—you can have it back."

She took a step forward, holding out the ball, cursing herself for a fool as she did so.

The chimera flinched again when she took the step, making a small, frightened noise in the back of its throat. Roxanne stopped.

Oh.

(isn't that what people like you do to people like me?)

The words _I'm not going to hurt you_ hovered at the edge of Roxanne's tongue, but she swallowed them down.

It was not that she enjoyed the chimera's fear in any way, but her own fear still fluttered in her chest, beneath her heart, and it whispered to her that the chimera's fear of her might be the only thing keeping her alive.

And what if it wasn't really afraid, not really? What if it meant to lure her into dropping her guard, to make her come closer to comfort it? The creature certainly did not look as if it wanted her to come closer at all, but that might be pretense—

"If I toss this to you," Roxanne asked, "can you catch it?"

An expression of relief flickered over the chimera's face—fast enough that surely it had to be an instinctive reaction.

And such a—a human expression.

"Yes," it said. "Yes, I can catch it."

Roxanne tossed the metal orb to it, and the chimera reached out with both hands and caught it, then cradled it protectively against its chest, out of the water.

The creature made another soft noise and carefully touched the top of the toy, making the petals unfurl.

"I didn't break it," Roxanne said, her suddenly empty hands clenching and unclenching at her sides, jittery and nervous.

The chimera touched the toy again and the petals of the metal flower folded back inwards. It looked back up at her again.

"Thank you," it said.

It smiled at her, then, a trembling, uncertain smile that unfolded like a flower itself. The expression was, undeniably, a sweet one, in spite of the sharp teeth.

"Did you make it?" Roxanne asked.

"Oh, yes!" the chimera said, smile brightening. "I made all of my auto-mata!"

It pronounced the last word strangely, placing the emphasis oddly, and for some reason, that seemed to strike a chord of Roxanne's memory, seemed somehow familiar—

(she was nine years old, and the teacher was laughing. Roxanne had just said the word 'genre' as 'jen-re'—Roxanne had only ever read the word, never spoken it aloud, though she'd known what it meant.)

Were the books the chimera's then, as well as the mechanical toys?

"They're beautiful," Roxanne said.

"You're beautiful," the chimera said, catching Roxanne utterly off guard. Before she could respond, though, it added, in exactly the same tone. "Are you a woman?"

Roxanne gave a bark of laughter.

"I—I don't know whether to be flattered or insulted," she said. "Yes, I'm a woman."

The chimera's brows drew together, an expression of confused concern.

"That was rude?" it asked. "I didn't mean to insult you."

"It's—usually telling someone you can't tell if they're a man or a woman would be rude," Roxanne said.

She looked at the chimera—its chest was flat, but she didn't see any kind of, well—external genitalia. But then, you didn't, did you, with fish? A dark, thin, vertical line ran down from beneath its lower lip to beneath the tip of its chin, where a man might have had facial hair—looking closely, though, Roxanne could see this was actually a kind of marking on its skin.

"Quite honestly, though," Roxanne said, "I'm not sure about you, either, so I see where you're coming from with that question. Are you a—" she hesitated slightly. 'man' wasn't the right word, but she wasn't sure how else to put it. "Are you a he?" she settled for asking.

"Oh!" the chimera looked surprised. "I—suppose so."

That was not quite as definite an answer as Roxanne would have expected, but she supposed it would have to do. She couldn't keep on thinking of the chimera as 'it'; that really would be rude. Especially since it didn't seem to intend to eat her.

"My name's Roxanne Ritchi," she said.

"Roxanne Ritchi," the chimera repeated, clearly enjoying the words. His neck frill gave a little shiver, and he added, again with clear enjoyment, " _Miss_ _Ritchi_."

Roxanne laughed at his obvious pride in remembering the correct form of address.

"Yes," she said. "And you are?"

"Warden calls me Syx," he said—which, Roxanne noticed, did not quite answer the question.

But the evasiveness hadn't been the oddest thing about that statement; had he really said—?

"The warden?"

"Is that why you're here?" the chimera asked. His fins fluttered, like someone gesturing excitedly with their hands. "Did my father send you? Is he still angry with me?"

"I—I'm sorry," Roxanne said. "No one sent me. I found a piece of paper—a list of—things. I thought there might be treasure. I don't know your father. I've never seen anyone like you before."

The chimera—Syx, he'd called himself, though Roxanne still wasn't certain if that was really his name or not—Syx drooped slightly, shoulders dropping, along with the frill on his neck.

"Warden isn't like me," he said. "Warden is like you. And he's been gone a long time; I thought—I thought maybe he sent you."

Roxanne's lips parted—gone for so long?

"Is—is your father's name Dan Seavey?" she asked.

Syx tilted his head.

"I don't know what humans call him," he said. "I call him father. And warden, but he doesn't like that. It makes him angry. We argued over it. I thought that might be why he's been gone for so long."

"How long has he been gone?" Roxanne asked.

"A month," Syx said, "a little more than a month."

Roxanne frowned.

"He can't be Dan Seavey, then," she said. "If it's only been a month. Dan Seavey's been dead for much longer than that."

Syx made a soft noise, a sort of hissing, indrawn breath.

"—oh," Roxanne said, realizing how that must have sounded, "I'm—I'm sorry; I didn't mean—"

"But perhaps he is dead," Syx said in a small voice, frill drawn in again, eyes large and liquid. "I don't know; that's—I don't know."

Roxanne stepped forward without thinking, until the tips of her shoes touched the edge of the water, then crouched down there, her hand outstretched.

Syx blinked at her for a moment, long enough for Roxanne to regret the impulsive gesture, and then, with a few movements of his long, powerful tail, he moved forward, too—swimming at first, but when the water grew too shallow for that, the motion turned into a kind of snakelike slither, his lower body undulating smoothly, the human part of his body held upright.

It was an utterly fluid and graceful motion—and it was also very deeply unnerving for some reason.

—because it made him look like a cobra about to strike, Roxanne realized, an edge of panic to her thoughts. She regretted her impulsive gesture of invitation even more thoroughly. And even now, she couldn't bring herself to run—stubbornness and politeness holding her in place in spite of the sudden spike of fear.

He didn't lunge for her, but merely stopped before her, very near to her.

Near enough that Roxanne could see the delicate dark markings that rimmed his eyes like kohl, could see the individual droplets of water beading on his skin, could see the way the delicate neck frill moved slightly with every breath he took. When he blinked, Roxanne could see that his eyes had second eyelids, could see the first transparent eyelids flick across his eye just barely ahead of the blinking of his more human eyelids.

Hesitantly, the chimera took one hand from the metal ball and reached it up to hers, touching their fingertips together.

Roxanne could see the webbing of it through the spaces between her own fingers.

She glanced up at the chimera's face, and saw her own uncertainty and fear and wonder reflected in its expression. _His_ expression.

Roxanne felt a tremor go through the hand that touched his, and could not say if it was herself or the chimera who trembled.

Perhaps it was both of them.

The chimera's gaze was fixed on their hands, but when she looked into his face, he lifted his eyes up to meet hers.

The second eyelids flickered over his eyes, and the tapeta lucida gleamed green at the back of them.

The chimera bit his lip, sharp teeth showing in an expression of worry.

Roxanne took a breath and pressed her palm against his.

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**


	3. Chapter 3

"I'm—I'm not sure what to do next," the chimera said.

(Syx, Roxanne reminded herself, he was called Syx and she needed to stop thinking of him as 'the chimera'; that was almost as rude as 'it'.)

"What do you mean?" Roxanne asked.

"With your hand," Syx said. He swallowed, his eyes flicking down to their hands—pressed, still, palm-to-palm. His eyes flicked up to hers. "I mean, do I—I'm supposed to—shake it? But I'm not really sure how…"

"Oh," Roxanne said, the word trembling on the edge of a laugh, "it's—here, give me your right hand instead. Yes—and then you take my hand like—this."

The handclasp was a little awkward at first; the webbing between his thumb and forefinger meant they couldn't hold hands quite as tightly as normal. After a moment, though, she managed a close approximation.

"And we shake like this," Roxanne said demonstrating. "You can hold my hand a little tighter than that," she added, "otherwise your hand just feels like a limp fish." She wasn't quite quick enough to stop herself from finishing the sentence, and winced. "Ah—sorry."

Syx's lips twitched, and then he laughed.

"Oh," he said, "I wouldn't want to seem like a—ah—a limp fish. Is this better?"

He shook her hand again, more firmly this time.

"Yes," Roxanne said, with a relieved laugh of her own. "Yes, that's better."

"I am a very lively fish," Syx said with an air of satisfaction, and looked up at her through his lashes, his eyes dancing with amusement and a smile hovering around the edges of his mouth.

Between the green sheen of his eyes and the expression, Roxanne found herself thinking not of a fish, but of a cat.

"What are you really?" Roxanne blurted out.

The big green eyes blinked.

"Because of course you're not really a fish," she said, unable to stop herself, "I mean, you're breathing out of water, so you can't be a fish. And—it—the list said 'chimera'. But that's really kind of just a—I mean, that just means some—one," Roxanne managed to catch herself just before she said 'thing', "someone—that looks like they're made up of more than one type of…creature. But you're—"

Again she hesitated—the word 'mermaid' suggested itself, but they'd only just established that he was probably male, so that didn't really—

"You're a—a siren?" she said instead.

Syx seemed to draw back from her slightly, his neck frill curving in just a bit, his second eyelids flicking over his eyes, his gaze going a little distant.

"…siren," he said, "I suppose that's—fairly accurate. As far as these things go."

Roxanne frowned. That had been rather frustratingly vague. He'd been vague when she asked him to name himself, too, and vague when she asked his gender. Did he have some sort of rooted objection to giving definite information?

His fingers twitched in her grip, and Roxanne realized, with a jolt, that she was still holding his hand. She let go of it quickly.

"Would you like to see the rest of my auto-mata?" Syx asked, changing the subject with graceless abruptness.

Roxanne blinked, caught off guard.

Ordinarily, she would have assumed it was merely an attempt to distract her from her original question, but he looked so eager that Roxanne was not entirely certain.

"I would, yes," Roxanne said.

His whole face lit up, and he clapped his webbed hands happily.

"Ah! Here!"

Roxanne gave an involuntary flinching jump when Syx began to move up the rug that led from the edge of the pool to the little 'room'—moving with that uncanny snakelike slither.

He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her, still smiling brightly.

"Over here! Follow!"

And he turned away and moved again towards the room.

Roxanne swallowed down the silly feeling of disquiet at his snakelike way of moving, got to her feet, and followed.

"Sit, sit!" Syx said, hands fluttering as he gestured at one of the low divans.

Roxanne sat, watching as Syx carefully replaced the metal orb on a shelf, then picked up another mechanical toy.

"Look!" he said, turning to her and handing the thing to her.

Roxanne looked. It seemed to be something a bit like a clock, but with no face—instead of a face, there just a metal hoop mounted on a metal stand about the size of a candlestick. At the top of the hoop was a flat brass disc the side of her palm and in the shape of a sun. At the bottom of the hoop was a silver disc shaped like a full moon. Another, smaller disc, painted blue, appeared to be designed to move slowly by clockwork around the hoop.

"It keeps the time," Syx said. "The blue circle takes twenty-four hours exactly to move from the sun, around to the moon, and then up to the sun again—then it chimes to let me know. And here—" He took the sun clock from her and handed her something else.

They spent almost a quarter of an hour like that, Roxanne thought, Syx showing her mechanism after mechanism, each one more remarkable than the last.

"And this," Syx said, as he put the last of the mechanisms into her hands, "this is my other favorite."

Roxanne took it carefully from him, and held it in her lap. Syx moved to the other divan as Roxanne looked down at the toy.

It was kind of miniature sea scene of a lighthouse in a storm—a narrow rectangular base, about as wide as a shadow box display. A little handle protruded from the side of the base; Roxanne wound it up, then let the handle go.

The scene began to move.

Blue-painted metal waves rose and fell fluidly, tossing a small metal rowboat up and down. The lighthouse window lit up and began to glow, and the dark storm clouds above the lighthouse began to pulse gently with lights, as if with rumbling lightning.

And, most startling of all, lights began to flash down the thin, clear wires—were they made of glass?—the thin clear wires that slashed diagonally down from the storm clouds to the waves.

Rain, Roxanne realized, catching her breath. It was rain.

She watched the scene until the clockwork wound down and the mechanism went still. Then she looked up at Syx.

"It's wonderful," she breathed.

He was lying on the other divan, his tail draped gracefully as he leaned his upper body on a large pillow, looking like something out of an illustrated book of fairytales.

Of all the amazing things in this room, he was the loveliest and most fascinating.

"They're all wonderful," she said, and he smiled at her in a soft, gratified way. "Thank you for showing them to me."

"I am very glad that you came here, Miss Ritchi," he said.

There was something very charming about his careful politeness, Roxanne thought. It might have seemed stiff if he hadn't been so absolutely in earnest. As it was, it rather reminded her of music—piano keys, pressed very precisely.

"So am I," Roxanne said. "And I really don't want to leave so soon. I'm afraid I have to, though."

Syx blinked at her, looking faintly surprised.

"Leave?"

"Yes," Roxanne said with real regret, "I have to get home; it's going to be dark. I'd like to come back soon, though, if you'll have me?"

Syx blinked at her again, a long, slow blink—inner eyelids, then the outer ones.

"Oh," he said, "oh, but of course I can't let you leave, Miss Ritchi."

* * *

 _ **...to be continued.**_


	4. Chapter 4

Roxanne went very still.

Syx, still lying on his divan, looked at her steadily. He had not shifted position in any way, and yet Roxanne was suddenly conscious of the powerful coils of his tail, the sharpness of his teeth—conscious, as she had not been but a moment ago, of a sense of menace.

"…it's very nice of you to ask me to stay longer," she said slowly, deliberately interpreting his words as she would have interpreted the words of a human—someone she'd called on urging her politely to lengthen her visit.

Syx frowned, and Roxanne's heartbeat picked up rather painfully. He shifted, pushing himself upright on one hand, his tail moving slightly.

Like a cobra, Roxanne thought, as she had thought before. Like a cobra, and this was how it felt to be prey.

The cave opening was behind her; could she make it there before he caught her?

"You—misunderstand me, Miss Ritchi," Syx said, still with that careful, precise politeness of his. "I'm—I'm afraid I'm really going to have to insist that you not leave."

Roxanne swallowed.

Without warning, she leapt to her feet and bolted for the cave opening.

She managed to take three paces before Syx reared up in front of her with all the suddenness of the striking cobra she'd compared him to. Roxanne stumbled back instinctively, but his tail twined around her ankles and she fell back onto the cushioned divan. Syx was on her before she could even try to rise, his hands catching her wrists and his tail lying heavy over her hips and legs, trapping her there.

"Please," he said, a distressed expression on his inhuman face, "please don't do that."

Roxanne twisted wildly in his grasp, but found herself unable to get free.

"Are you going to kill me?" she snarled.

Syx jerked back from her, his neck frill drawing in.

"What?" he said, sounding appalled. "No, I—of course I'm not going to kill you!"

"Oh?" Roxanne said, baring her teeth at him. "Isn't that what things like you do to people like me?"

Syx jerked back again, even more sharply than before, his eyes going wide and horrified and wounded.

His grip on her wrists slackened slightly and Roxanne twisted again, trying to throw him off of her. It did her no good, though; Syx made a frustrated noise and tightened his grip again. Roxanne fought for another few moments, then went still and glared up at him.

"What are you planning to do to me, then?" Roxanne asked.

"Wh—nothing!" Syx said, "nothing; I'm not going to do anything to you; I just—you just have to stay!"

"So you're going to keep me prisoner here?" Roxanne asked, voice rising. "You can't do that to me!"

Syx made a soft noise in the back of his throat, his neck frill moving in an agitated, fluttering way.

"Please," he said, "please, Miss Ritchi; can't you be reasonable?"

"Isn't it reasonable to want to not be taken prisoner?" Roxanne said.

He grimaced, showing sharp teeth, and Roxanne couldn't stop her instinctive flinch at the sight of them, couldn't stop the small, choked noise of fear that rose up in the back of her throat.

Syx's eyes went wide when she flinched, and for a long moment he stayed very still, looking down at her.

"I—I don't want to hurt you," he said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Anger rose up in Roxanne on the heels of her fear—anger not just at him, but at herself, too, for that moment of weakness, for showing her fear.

"You're going to have to hurt me," she said deliberately, "if you're going to make me stay."

Syx made a soft noise—not unlike Roxanne's noise of fear. He looked down at her, his wide, green eyes near to her own. And then—

He let her go.

Syx released her wrists and pushed himself up and away from her.

"I won't," he said, turning his face away and curling up on the far edge of the divan, one of his arms wrapped around his own chest. "I won't hurt you."

Roxanne sat up slowly, warily.

He didn't look at her, just tightened his arm around his own chest, his neck frill drawn in.

She was keenly away that she should run now, that she should run away as fast as she could, run away and not look back.

"—Syx?" she said, and, instead of running, she reached out with a hesitant hand and touched his shoulder.

He took a sharp breath, a sound almost like a reaction to pain, and Roxanne drew her hand back automatically as he turned to look at her, his neck frill flaring.

There was a sheen of tears to his eyes and Roxanne's heart twisted. She reached out again without thinking and touched the back of his hand.

"I really will come back, you know," she said.

Syx jerked his hand away.

"And bring people with spears and nets and cages," he said. "Yes, I know."

Roxanne took a sharp, shocked breath.

"I would never do that," she said.

"Oh?" Syx said. He gave a bitter laugh. "Isn't that what people like you do to _things_ like me?"

Roxanne winced and Syx gave her a small, twisted smile.

"—I'm sorry," she said. "I—shouldn't have called you that. You're not a thing."

She read in his expression that he didn't believe her apology.

"Is that why you tried to make me stay?" she asked. "Because you were afraid I'd lead people here and let them hurt you?"

"Yes, of course," Syx said, glaring at her. "What other reason would I have?"

"Well, I don't know, do I?" Roxanne said, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "How would I know if you didn't tell me? One moment we're having a normal conversation, and the next moment you're telling me I'm a prisoner completely out of the blue!"

"You're not a prisoner," Syx said, his mouth going flat. "You're free to leave, Miss Ritchi."

Roxanne narrowed her eyes at him.

"You still think I'm going to do it," she said, "don't you? You still don't trust me."

Syx looked away from her and gestured, a quick, sharp gesture, and the webbing between his fingers caught the light.

"Well," Roxanne said after a long moment, "then I suppose I'll have to stay."

Syx's head whipped around.

"What?" he said.

Roxanne leaned back on one hand and waved the other.

"I said I suppose I'll have to stay," she repeated.

"What?" Syx said again, voice sharper. "What do you mean, stay?"

"Stay," Roxanne said, "here. I'll have to stay here. I'm not leaving," she added, since he still looked bewildered.

"You can't!"

Roxanne raised an eyebrow.

"You can't stay!" Syx said, voice rising. "You don't want to! That doesn't make any sense!"

"Of course it does," Roxanne said. "You still don't trust me not to tell people about you. If I leave now, you're going to disappear, aren't you? I'll come back to see you and you'll be gone."

Syx gave a mirthless laugh.

"Oh, I won't be gone," he said.

Roxanne shook her head.

"I don't believe you," she said. "You won't feel safe enough to stay here, and I'll probably never see you again."

"It's not a question of my feeling safe or not," Syx said. "I'm not—"

He cut himself off, shaking his head, looking away from her.

"You're not what?" Roxanne asked after a long moment of silence.

Syx's tail coiled a little tighter. He took a sharp breath through his nose, neck frill flaring.

He looked at her.

"Able to leave," he said.

Roxanne blinked.

"You're not able to leave?" she asked.

There was another moment of silence. Then Syx gestured, a two-handed, fluttering gesture, almost theatrical. He laughed, a forced, light laugh.

"It's really rather amusing, isn't it?" he said. "We've been arguing about you being able to leave—but you're not the one trapped here, Miss Ritchi. I am."

"Trapped here?" she asked. "But—the lake isn't that far away."

"Yes, I know," Syx said bitterly.

"But—there have to be underground springs, leading to the lake," Roxanne said.

"The openings are too small," he said. "I can't fit through."

"What about the tunnel, then?" Roxanne said. "You've been out of the water this entire time; moving on land can't be a problem for you."

"These," Syx said, waving a hand at the rugs on the ground. "I can move on these. But the rocks—I tried, before." He gestured at his lower body, making an unhappy face. "My skin is—when it dries out, it gets too delicate. It—tore and bled; it was very—unpleasant. I fainted. Father found me later and carried me back."

"…carried you back," Roxanne repeated slowly. "He carried you back here. Instead of to the lake."

Syx nodded, quick and sharp.

"That's why you said you call him 'Warden'," Roxanne said as understanding dawned. "That's why you call him that sometimes; because he's keeping you imprisoned, here."

Syx looked down, mouth twisting unhappily.

"He says it's not like that," he said. "It makes him upset when I call him Warden. That's what we argued about."

"He's keeping you prisoner," Roxanne said.

Syx tightened his hands into fists in his lap and looked down at them.

"He says he's keeping me safe," he said wretchedly.

"Safe?" Roxanne said, incredulous and feeling really angry now. "Safe from what?"

Syx looked up at her and she read the answer in his eyes.

"From humans?" she said. "Is he the one who told you that people wanted to kill you and take your skin? Because that sounds as if he's trying to scare you so that you don't—"

"No," Syx said, shaking his head. "No, it wasn't—it wasn't him who told me that. Not just him."

"Not just him? Does someone else come down here?"

Syx grimaced and shook his head.

"—is someone else here?" Roxanne asked, glancing into the darkness, at the lake. "Someone—someone like you?"

"No," he said. "No, there's—there's no one else like me—here or—or anywhere."

"Not anywhere?" Roxanne asked. "Are you sure?"

Syx nodded.

"How do you know?" she asked.

Syx looked away and did not answer.

Roxanne bit her lip in frustration.

Did he really know? Was it something this 'warden' had told him? Or was this another thing that he simply refused to explain to Roxanne?

"What about the rugs?" she asked, changing the subject.

Syx looked at her, blinking in puzzlement.

"The rugs?"

"To get you out," Roxanne said. "We can use two of them—that long one, and we can cut a thin strip from another of these others. We'll lay them down one at a time, then switch as you move down the tunnel. That way you won't ever have to go across the rocks at all."

"I thought of that," Syx said, with a slightly sad smile. "My fin is too big to fit through the narrow part of the tunnel." He flicked the end of his tail illustratively.

"Damn," Roxanne said, and then, at Syx's wide-eyed expression, added, "—I mean—ah—excuse me; that…wasn't very polite…"

Syx tilted his head. Then a slow smile began to spread over his face.

"Damn," he said, with what appeared to be great relish.

Roxanne laughed.

"What a very satisfying word!" Syx said, grinning. "Helps to relieve one's feelings. When you go, do you think you could look for my father?" he added, without pausing.

"—oh," Roxanne said, the sudden change of subject catching her off balance. "I—suppose I can, yes." She hesitated for just a moment. "Are you sure you really want him found, though?" she couldn't help asking.

Syx frowned, tilting his head at her inquiringly.

"He sounds awful; don't you think you're better off without him?" Roxanne said, realizing a moment too late how unsympathetic that sounded.

An expression of distress flickered over Syx's face, his neck frill shivering.

"No," he said, "I—he isn't—that—"

He stopped and swallowed visibly. Again the distress flickered in his face. For a long moment, he hesitated.

"I want him to be all right," he said finally, with a kind of intense, artless sincerity.

He looked at her with big, unhappy green eyes.

"—all right," Roxanne forced herself to say. "I'll look for him. Why don't you describe him to me?"

Syx's face lit up.

"I'll make you a sketch!" he said, and moved from the divan to the floor and across to the shelf.

He opened something that looked a bit like an incredibly complex music box and drew out a sheaf of paper and a piece of charcoal. Then he placed the paper on the low table and curled up on the floor before it.

Roxanne, still seated on the divan, watched Syx as he began to sketch.

Again she was conscious of a desire to try to persuade him, to make him see—but no.

There was no saying she'd even be able to find this 'warden' of Syx's; probably the man really was dead. Would that kind of controlling man have stayed away so long by choice? Roxanne doubted it.

And if she did happen to find the man?

Roxanne compressed her lips.

Syx's webbed fingers manipulated the piece of charcoal with swift, sure strokes. Roxanne stared at him, fascinated, her eyes following the graceful, inhuman lines of him.

How strange.

She wasn't—

She wasn't afraid of him anymore.

She had been afraid of him, still, when he'd been showing her his mechanical toys. Even before he'd told her she couldn't leave, even before he'd grabbed her—she'd still been afraid, really. The fear had been suppressed, but it had still been there, beneath the surface.

It was gone, now.

When she'd told him that he'd have to hurt her to keep her there, he'd released her immediately. He'd let her go and turned away and refused to hurt her.

And so she couldn't be afraid of him, now.

Syx bit his lip in concentration, catching it between sharp teeth, and Roxanne relaxed back onto the cushions of the divan, watching him.

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**


	5. Chapter 5

When Roxanne left, disappearing through the cave opening, taking the sketch he'd made with her, the creature known as Syx lay curled up on the edge of the carpet for several minutes, gazing into the darkness.

Then, at last, a shiver ran through his body, from the frill on his neck to the bottom of his tail, and he turned away and moved, with sinuous grace, down to the lake again. He slipped into the water, and disappeared, with hardly a ripple beneath the surface of it.

Down into the dark water he dove, moving with easy, powerful flicks of his tail.

The lake was very deep, and he did not stop until he reached to bottom of it, where the great, hulking forms of rock formations thrust upwards from the silt of the lakebed.

Everything at the bottom, here, was covered in a layer of phosphorescent algae which glowed faintly blue.

Syx's eyes, though, searching the rock formations, picked out an opening in one particular rock which glowed more than the others—a greenish color, rather than blue.

He halted in front of this rock formation, fins waving gently with the motion of the currents.

 ** _Minyon,_** he called, the sound clicking and echoing through the water like the noise of whale-song. **_Come out, Minyon, please._**

The greenish glow pulsed for a moment within the rocks, and then a fish emerged, a fish with sharp teeth and intelligent eyes, and luminescent tendrils. It fixed Syx with an accusing stare.

 ** _Please don't be angry, Minyon,_** Syx said.

 _Why must you be so foolish, tekel?_ Minyon said, crest and fins moving agitatedly in the shape which indicated apprehension of danger.

 ** _I had to talk to her, Minyon,_** Syx said, hands moving as he spoke, making the gesture shapes that indicated apology and conciliation.

 _You did not!_ Minyon said. _You wished to speak to her! You should have hidden beneath the water!_

 ** _She saw the sitting room, Minyon,_** Syx said. **_She already knew someone was here. I had to speak to her._**

 _And did you have to let her go as well?_ Minyon said, with a sharp gesture of negation.

 ** _I didn't want to hurt her,_** Syx said, neck frill raised defensively.

 _Then you should have led her down to the water and let me do it, tekel!_ Minyon said.I don't want you to hurt her, either!

 ** _I don't want you to hurt her, either!_** Syx said, emphatically making the negation gesture. **_You're not to hurt her when she comes back!_**

 _And when she attacks you?_

 ** _She won't!_** Syx's hands fluttered in the negation gesture again.

 _She will. She'll want to take your skin._

 ** _She won't! She's going to come again with news of Father!_**

Minyon made a rather rude gesture to indicate his disbelief.

Syx's tail and neck frill moved agitatedly.

 ** _I don't know what else to do, Minyon! You said yourself that you haven't been able to find him anywhere around the lake! What if he's injured? What if he needs help? I could try leaving again; I—_**

 _No._

Minyon's gesture of negation was forceful and final.

 ** _But I—_**

 _No._ Minyon made the gesture again. _You have to stay here, tekel. Where it's safe. Relatively safe,_ he added, narrowing his eyes at Syx. N _ot so very safe now that you let the skinthief go._

 ** _She's not like that, Minyon,_** Syx said, hands moving in the gestures of admiration and wonder. **_She's different._**

Minyon gave him a disbelieving look.

 _You shouldn't have told her so much, tekel,_ he said.

 ** _But I didn't!_** Syx's eyes flew wide, his neck frill fluttering. ** _I didn't tell her my name, or about the M'ega, or about you! I didn't tell her anything!_**

 _You told her that you can't leave,_ Minyon said. _That was very unwise, tekel._

 ** _Well, perhaps you and the warden should let me leave, then,_** Syx said sulkily. **_At least let me try! I could try! I might be able to make it through if I took off—_**

 _No, tekel,_ Minyon said.

 ** _But—_**

 _No_ , Minyon said, and made the gesture of negation. _You remember what happened before. You could have died. Never again._

Syx bared his teeth, neck frill bristling, and then, with an angry flick of his tail, he turned and swam away.

Minyon, alone by the rock formation, made a gesture of frustration, although there was no one there to see.

* * *

The sun, Roxanne thought, squinting upwards at it as she unlocked the library doors the next day, seemed especially harsh today—a coldly bright, heartless kind of light. It hurt her eyes, and didn't make her feel any warmer.

Of course, she admitted to herself, any sun, seen on the wrong side of a sleepless night, was bound to look rather more unpleasant than usual.

Really, though; could anyone be expected to be able to sleep after having discovered a mermaid living in a secret cave? Roxanne certainly hadn't been able to—although, to be fair, she hadn't actually tried.

When she'd gotten home the previous night, she'd locked the library doors, gone upstairs to her attic apartment and changed out of her heavy clothes, hidden Dan Seavey's list in her stocking drawer again—and then she'd gone down to the library again, and begun to research mermaids.

She'd laid waste to the folklore section of the library, pulling every book which referenced water spirits from the shelves. She brought the books back to her desk, where she went through them.

Most of the books were general folklore volumes, and had only short entries on water spirits; Roxanne, wanting to see everything in front of her, copied out the relevant information from the books onto notecards, taking care to note the book and page, and then set the books aside to be returned to the shelves.

Two volumes were entirely about water spirits, though one had been written in the most arch and infuriating tone possible, and contained, Roxanne decided, very little information that might be considered useful. She gleaned what few facts she could find from the book and set it aside, too.

Roxanne's lips, at that thought, twisted into a frustrated grimace. Facts. That was just the problem. They weren't facts, were they? Not proper, real, concrete ones. Did she believe that the author of that aggravating, simpering book had done any kind of legitimate research on their subject? No. No, she did not.

By the time had to get up and unlock the library doors, there was only one book left; she'd saved it for last because it seemed most promising. Like the slim volume, it was not a general folklore book, but had mermaids alone as its subject. A Study of Water Spirits was the title—a surprisingly no-nonsense title for a book about such a fantastic subject.

Though she did not allow her expectations to rise too high; the publisher's mark was of a company Roxanne recognized as one willing to publish a small run of any book—as long as the author was willing to pay.

That didn't necessarily mean the book was rubbish, though; a really devoted hobbyist, passionately interested in the subject, might be just what she was looking for in this case.

Roxanne sat down again at her desk, opened the book, and began to read. By the time she reached the third page, she was grimacing.

The author, Roxanne thought, had to have have been interested in the subject matter; the information laid out in this book was very comprehensive indeed. But she could not find any evidence of any kind of passion in the text.

Indeed, she was almost grateful when the library patrons began to trickle in, as their infrequent requests for her assistance gave her an excuse to take a rest from reading the book.

It was incredibly dull—and not just dull, but also really quite nasty. The author seemed not only to think their audience rather stupid, but to actively dislike them, and to like scoring off of them.

The writer, Roxanne thought, must be one of those people who enjoyed telling people things not really because they were passionate about their subject, but more because the act of telling gave them a sense of superiority.

She struggled grimly through the book, though, and found her perseverance unexpectedly rewarded when she reached the final chapter.

 ** _Local Legends of the Great Lakes_**

 _Any person with a modicum of observational skills and average powers of memory may congratulate themselves on their perception in realizing that there are bound to be_ _plenty of reported sightings of semi-human, lake-dwelling creatures in the area around the Great Lakes._

 _Native legends reference these creatures, and although these might be dismissed as mere primitive superstition, they are lent credence by the later accounts of white settlers, who reported seeing lake monsters described variously as snakelike, fishlike, and with an upper body resembling that of a human._

 _Early during settlement, such creatures were frequently seen throughout the Great Lakes, but gradually these sightings tapered off in frequency, becoming slowly concentrated into a gradually shrinking area._

 _Eventually, during the time period of approximately 1870 to 1908, the frequency of these sightings spiked, peaking in 1908._

 _Most interestingly, the sightings during this period, save for a very few exceptions, occurred only in a small area around the area of the lakeside town of Metro City._

 _In 1908, there was an abrupt and dramatic drop in the frequency of the sightings, and after 1908 there were no reported sightings in the Metro City area, save for a very dubious alleged sighting by a group of schoolchildren in 1915, which, of course, considering the age of the supposed witnesses, can only be of interest to the very credulous, and must be dismissed by any person of real intelligence._

Roxanne made a face of distaste and snapped the book close, then pushed it across to the other side of the desk.

What an unpleasant person this—she looked at the spine of the book, where the author's name was printed—Bernard Jenkins—what an unpleasant person this Bernard Jenkins must be. That nasty tone of bored superiority, his words about 'primitive superstition', and his automatic dismissal of the 1915 sighting simply because the witnesses had been children.

Roxanne picked up her fountain pen and tapped it against the desk top, frowning down at her neat stack of notecards. Then she put down her pen, picked up the notecards, and began to arrange them on the desk, organizing them, putting things that seemed most important at the center, placing things that seemed related to each other together.

Different types of water spirits.

Shapeshifting kelpies that could look like men.

Mermaids with fish tails.

Naga with the tails of snakes.

Selkies that could shift between human and seal form by taking off or putting on their fur coats.

Sirens, who, it was said, lured sailors with beautiful music to be shipwrecked— the myths concerning sirens were exceptionally frustrating; some sources claimed they were water-dwelling creatures, while other sources claimed they were winged, birdlike creatures.

Lorelei, who also caused shipwrecks, but possibly unintentionally.

Limnads, lake nymphs who lured travelers to be drowned by singing or by screaming as if in distress.

The rusalki, which seemed to share some of the confusing double nature of the sirens—a rusalka lived sometimes in the water and sometimes in the trees, and drowned the unwary.

Roxanne placed the last notecard down on the desktop and looked down at the web of her research.

—had she learned anything useful?

A lot of cautionary tales about the danger of mermaids, but she was sure, still, that Syx did not intend to hurt her.

The selkie stories—Roxanne couldn't blame Syx for his distrust of humans, considering the selkie stories. All those human who stole selkies' coats and hid them to capture the selkie.

All that research, but everything had been so very vague; she still didn't feel as if she were really well-informed on the subject, in spite of all the time she'd devoted to reading about it.

That last book, though, regardless of how unpleasant it had been, had contained some important information.

All of the sightings of what, Roxanne was sure, had to be more of Syx's people—he'd said that there were no more like him, that he was sure that there were no more like him, which did seem to fit in with the sudden drop of sightings in 1908.

1908\. Roxanne had been born in 1907. Born here, in Metro City; she'd been born just barely in the time of the mermaid sightings. And Roxanne had still been here in 1915; they had moved to Wisconsin to live with her mother's family in 1919.

How on earth could she have missed the news of a group of other children supposedly seeing a mermaid? Surely it should have been in at least one newspaper, a dismissive, humorous entry if nothing else. And yet she was sure there had been nothing; she would have noticed. She'd always been fascinated with newspapers, and a mermaid sighting would have been just the sort of thing to catch the imagination of her child self.

1908—how old was Syx? He looked around Roxanne's own age, and it was difficult to judge based on his demeanor—he had an air of innocence that made him seem young, but the formality of his manners made him seem older…

That sighting in 1915; that hadn't been so very long ago, and it meant that it was possible that there was someone else like Syx, living out in the lake.

How, Roxanne wondered, could all this be connected with Dan Seavey? For it must be connected with him in some way. It had been Dan Seavey's secret paper, hidden in that copy of _Treasure Island_ Roxanne had sold to Lady Scott, which had led her to the cave, and to Syx. Roxanne had found Dan Seavey's initials in the tunnels leading to Syx's cave. And that secret paper—that secret paper which had spoken of pearls, and feathers, and _chimera_ …

Dan Seavey—something danced at the edges of her mind, something about Dan Seavey, the memory of Great Aunt Rachel holding forth on the subject of the lake pirate.

 _ **Accused** lake pirate_ , Roxanne heard Great Aunt Rachel's voice say sharply. _Only **accused!** They might have arrested him, young lady, but he was never found guilty!_

Arrested him…arrested him—something about that—something about that, about Dan Seavey being arrested. Something about that was significant, Roxanne thought; she was almost sure of it. But what—?

"Miss Ritchi."

Roxanne, engrossed in her thoughts, jumped and looked up guiltily at the sound of the sweet, musical voice.

"—Lady Scott," Roxanne said.

Lady Scott stood in front of Roxanne's desk. She was beautifully and impeccably attired—chic hat, fashionable shoes, white gloves. She smiled at Roxanne, her lips curving gently.

"How may I assist you, Lady Scott?" Roxanne asked.

"Oh!" Lady Scott gave a demure laugh. "Thank you, Miss Ritchi, yes. I'm looking for a book." She gave another laugh. "How silly I must sound, of course I'm looking for a book!"

Roxanne laughed politely, as if she hadn't heard that particular witticism at least a hundred times before, from various library patrons.

"Any book in particular?" Roxanne asked. "Or would you like me to make a suggestion—?"

"Oh, no!" Lady Scott said. "No, I know just what book I'm looking for, thank you. Robert Louis Stevenson." She smiled at Roxanne quite sweetly. " _Treasure Island._ "

* * *

 ** _...to be continued._**

* * *

 **Minyon calls Syx 'tekel', which is an term roughly similar to a genderless form of canon Minion's 'sir' in the M'ega language. Although the actual translation of 'tekel' is something like 'overlord', the Mnyn fish use it for their bonded M'ega more as an expression of affection, rather than veneration.**


	6. Chapter 6

"Treasure—Treasure Island?" Roxanne repeated.

A little frisson of fear went through her. Unconsciously, she sat up straighter in her chair.

"—Treasure Island," she said again. "Ah—certainly, I can find that for you. May I—may I inquire why— I mean, were you not satisfied with—?"

Lady Scott blinked wide, apparently guileless eyes at Roxanne, as if she did not quite understand what Roxanne was driving at—although surely no one could really be that slow on the uptake.

If she was acting, though, it was a terribly convincing performance.

"If you're not completely satisfied with the copy of Treasure Island that I sold to you," Roxanne said, putting the question into actual words, since the woman seemed either unwilling or unable to take the hint, "and you'd like to return it—"

"Oh! Oh, no!" Lady Scott gave a tinkling laugh. "I'd simply like to have another copy of the book—to compare the two volumes, you understand." She smiled. "I believe the copy you sold me might have some—interesting differences—from other editions."

Roxanne's heart gave a painful thump.

Did the woman—did she know Roxanne had taken the map? Surely she couldn't, and yet—

"Printing errors, do you mean?" Roxanne asked, hoping Lady Scott couldn't sense her sudden apprehension.

"—errors," Lady Scott repeated, still smiling. "Yes. Errors." She looked down at the top of Roxanne's desk. "Oh! You're studying mermaids, I see."

Terror swept through Roxanne, hot first, and then cold. Was she imagining the hard light in Lady Scott's eyes; was she imagining that the woman was—

"Just some folklore research," Roxanne said, and wondered if her voice sounded as artificial as it she suspected. "Various things, really. Sirens, especially—so interesting, don't you think, the way the descriptions of sirens differ? Many times they're not described as mermaids at all, but more like birds! Isn't that fascinating?"

She forced herself to stop babbling by dint of actually biting her tongue, her heart beating hard.

An expression flashed in Lady Scott's face—

—or perhaps it was her mind playing tricks on her, but Roxanne, watching Lady Scott's face, thought she saw the woman's expression go a little frozen, and then flinty, before resuming its former sweetness.

"What a diverting little project," Lady Scott said. "I suppose you became interested in it after hearing some of our—local mermaid legends?" She smiled. "People inventing romantic explanations for quite ordinary occurrences—to be expected, after all of the drownings, I suppose."

Roxanne swallowed.

"Drownings?" she asked.

"Oh, yes," Lady Scott said, her expression utterly pleasant, "it might look peaceful, but our lake can be very perilous, Miss Ritchi. There are—well. Dangerous currents. They pull one away from the shoreline, until suddenly you look around and realize how very far out from the shore you are. And then the waves pull you under."

Roxanne realized that she had stopped breathing.

"One should always remember to be careful," Lady Scott said, her eyes limpid and her smile charming. "Not to swim out too far. Don't you think, Miss Ritchi?"

Roxanne tried to respond, but the words stuck in her throat.

Lady Scott gave her sweet, light laugh.

"Goodness, I mustn't stay here talking and taking up all of your time, Miss Ritchi! Until we meet again."

Lady Scott turned and walked away, her high heels clicking across the library floor.

It was not until she disappeared through the library doors that Roxanne felt able to breathe again.

She took a shaky breath and, with a sudden motion, swept up the notecards, opened her desk drawer, shoved them inside it, and shut the drawer firmly.

Roxanne shivered.

Had she been imagining the strangeness of Lady Scott's manner, the—the threatening note to it?

Yes—yes, surely she must have imagined it. Lady Scott was a vapid, polite, and perfectly harmless woman.

Roxanne hadn't slept the night before; that accounted for the overwrought state of her nerves, that was why she'd thought Lady Scott was—

Lady Scott hadn't waited for her book.

Roxanne went very still.

Lady Scott hadn't waited for Roxanne to find the book she'd requested. She'd said she wanted a volume of Treasure Island, to check for differences between it and the copy Roxanne had sold to her, but she hadn't waited for Roxanne to actually find the book and bring it to her.

Almost as if she—as if she hadn't actually wanted the book at all, as if she had come to the library simply to speak to Roxanne.

And seen in that light, the conversation seemed very sinister indeed—

Did she know that there had been something hidden in that book Roxanne had sold to her? Did she somehow know Roxanne had taken the map? Had she been—testing Roxanne, testing to see if Roxanne looked guilty when she mentioned differences in the copy, and errors?

Did Lady Scott know about Syx? Know—or suspect? Her words about mermaids might have been innocuous, prompted only by the sight of Roxanne's notecards—or they might, again, have been a kind of test.

And then she'd spoken of drowning, and the dangers of the lake.

Dangerous currents—

Perhaps Lady Scott had just forgotten her book. Possibly she was just absentminded. That was certainly the most reasonable explanation.

But in the depths of her heart, Roxanne knew she did not believe it.

Dangerous currents…

Roxanne shivered.

* * *

"A little old, don't you think, dear?" Vera Blumenthal said.

Roxanne blinked, confused.

"Old?"

She looked down at the man in Syx's drawing, which she'd just shown to Vera Blumenthal—a man who looked, to Roxanne, to be about forty-five or fifty years old, with a mildly bulbous nose and a mustache. The same age, or perhaps even a bit younger, than Vera Blumenthal.

A little old? What on earth was the woman talking about?

"And not at all what I'd call a nice looking man," Vera Blumenthal continued. She patted Roxanne's hand. "I'm sure you can do much better; you're a very pretty girl. Don't you think so, Emily?" she added, to the other white-haired old lady standing next to her.

"Oh, certainly, Vera," Emily Blackthorn agreed. "Very pretty."

"I—no!" Roxanne said, horrified understanding dawning. "No, no! That's not—"

"And didn't young Wayne Scott ask you to the picnic this year? Quite a polite young man, I've always thought, although not, perhaps, precisely what one might call intellectual," Vera went on, seemingly oblivious to Roxanne's mortification, "which I'm sure would weigh with a clever girl like you. And older men do seem more sophisticated, I suppose, but honestly, dear—"

"I—really, Miss Blumenthal!" Roxanne said, finally succeeding in breaking in on the woman's flow of words. "You've—you've got the wrong idea entirely! I'm not—not personally interested in this man, whoever he is; I only wanted to return his son's drawing—"

"Oh," Miss Blumenthal said, with a maddeningly arch smile. "Of course dear; if you say so. Well, why don't I just take a little peek at that drawing again."

Roxanne, who was, by this time, wishing she'd never shown the woman the drawing in the first place, pushed it across the counter to Miss Blumenthal once more.

Miss Blumenthal took it, and looked at it closely, a slight frown between her eyebrows.

"Hmm," she said, "I'm—you know, I'm really not quite sure. He seems almost familiar, but I don't know—what do you think, Emily?"

She handed the drawing to her companion, who frowned at it as well.

"No," Emily said, "no, I don't think I can place him. You're right though, Vera; he does look familiar somehow."

"Of course, he is quite an ordinary type," Miss Blumenthal said, taking the drawing back, and looking at it again.

"Yes, quite ordinary," Roxanne said, coolly, hoping to head off another lecture about the man's romantic unsuitability. "I suppose that's why I can't remember his name. Really, it was the drawing that caught my attention more than anything; it's beautifully done, don't you think? That's why I thought he might want it returned."

"It is a very good sketch," Miss Blumenthal agreed. "His son's work, you said? What was his son like? Perhaps we know him."

"Oh—" Roxanne hesitated a moment, "I—I really doubt it, I think he was…from out of town. I don't think you'd know him."

"Oh!" Vera Blumenthal's face brightened. "From out of town, you say? A young man, then; not a child! Dear me, I have been confused; haven't I? Good looking, I suppose?"

An image of Syx appeared in Roxanne's mind—his smooth blue skin, the sinuously graceful curve of his tail, the bright, luminous green eyes.

Good looking—what a perfectly ludicrous thing to say. Syx certainly couldn't be described by any phrase so tepidly ordinary as 'good looking'. Inhumanly beautiful was more like it.

Miss Blumenthal exchanged a meaningful glance with her friend Emily and Roxanne felt herself flush with embarrassment.

"I—I can't really remember," she lied.

Miss Blumenthal gave her a disappointed look, and clicked her tongue. Then she handed the picture back to Roxanne.

"Dear, dear; how unfortunate that we can't seem to place him." she said. "Well, I'm sure I wish you luck finding them, Miss Ritchi. And if Emily and I happen to see the man, we'll be sure you let you know."

"Thank you, Miss Blumenthal, Miss Blackthorn," Roxanne said, smiling politely, mentally thinking her lucky stars that they were leaving. "Enjoy your books."

* * *

As the end of the week drew nearer, Roxanne found herself growing steadily more and more impatient and agitated. It was so very frustrating—there was a mermaid hidden in a secret cave down in Smugglers' Cove, and here she was, stamping library cards and re-shelving books!

And asking around about Syx's 'father'. She did, at least, feel as if she'd made some progress there.

She'd spent the week asking the older library patrons if they could identify the man in the sketch, thinking that the older people would be more likely to remember faces. And she had given each of them the story about wanting to return his son's drawing.

The result, Roxanne reflected grimly, was that a substantial portion of the elderly population of the city was probably now under the impression that Roxanne was a shameless hussy intent on romantically pursuing the unattractive man in the drawing, his mysterious son, or possibly both.

None of them had been able to definitely identify the man—or, at least, some of them had said they were quite definite as to who he was, but none of them had given her the same name for him.

Vera Blumenthal was right about him being a very ordinary looking man, of a common type found in Metro City. He looked like every other white male resident of Michigan between the ages of forty and sixty, really; Roxanne thought with dissatisfaction. That was the problem.

Still, she had a list of nine names, now, and she'd found the addresses of seven of the men in the library records. The other two she'd have to find another way. But there were the seven addresses to check up on. Yes, that was certainly something, and she'd be able to show Syx that she'd been looking, like he'd asked her.

Syx.

Sometimes she couldn't believe that he'd really been real. She'd never seen anything like him before. He shouldn't be possible. Countless times throughout the week, Roxanne had barely been able to stop herself from running down to Smugglers' Cove again, to reassure herself that he was real; that she hadn't just imagined him. The nights were especially difficult; every night Roxanne felt a wild impulse to slip into the darkness and race down to the water, and to the cave, to find him.

Unlike most of the people in Metro City, Roxanne's days off were Sunday and Monday, as opposed to Sunday and Saturday, so that the library could stay open during the first half of most people's weekends.

The library patrons seemed especially tiresome and irritating to Roxanne all of Saturday, and the day itself seemed to last for an eternity, but at last she was able to shut the doors behind the last customer, and lock up for the day.

She barely slept that night, and had restless dreams of caves and dark water, and a shoreline that retreated from her no matter how hard she swam towards it.

Luckily, Sunday was another cold day, and, as many of the people in Metro City were in church anyway, there was only a single man walking his dog along the shoreline when she got there. Roxanne wandered in a carefully casual way up and down the beach until they left. As soon as they were gone, she climbed up the boulders, and then down into Smugglers' Cove, where she moved towards the cliff face.

 _Suppose it isn't there_ , Roxanne's mind whispered, as it had whispered to her so many times during the last week. _Suppose you made it all up. Suppose that there isn't any opening in the cliff, that there never was, that you just imagined the secret entrance and the hidden cave and Syx because you're sad and bored and lonely and never really properly grew up. Suppose—_

But the opening was there, just where she remembered it being.

Roxanne slipped inside it, and disappeared into the dark of the passageway into the rock.

The little cave was there, too, at the end of the first passageway; the initials D.S. still marked the opening she wanted. Roxanne stepped through it, the light of her torch a small gleam in the darkness.

Her impatience and nervous anticipation made the journey seem longer than it had before, and the bag she carried made it seem narrower. When the tunnel walls drew inwards and she had to crawl, she had to fight against the apprehensive feeling that it would never end, that it would go on and on forever, getting narrower and narrower, until she was stuck, until she'd gone too far to go back.

Eventually, though, the passage widened again, and she was able to walk once more.

Walking, she heard the sounds of water, and her steps and heartbeat quickened—soon, soon she would reach—

Roxanne rounded a bend in the passageway and stepped into the cavern with the lake.

The bioluminescent walls and ceiling glowed softly, still, as did the waters of the lake. The little room was there, too, the rugs and bookshelves and divans and clever metal devices.

But the room was empty, and the water of the lake was still, and Roxanne's heart twisted with apprehension.

"Syx?" she called. Her voice echoed in the cavern.

She dropped her bag and her torch on one of the divans and moved quickly down to the water's edge.

"Syx?"

There was no answer. Roxanne bit her lip and knelt down beside the water, trailed her fingertips in it. The water was surprisingly warm, much warmer than she'd expected, nothing like the frigid water of the lake.

"Syx?" she said uncertainly.

Was he—was he gone? He'd said he couldn't leave, and she hadn't thought he was lying, but perhaps he hadn't trusted her enough to tell her the truth. Or was he…hiding from her?

Or maybe she just hadn't been quick enough to find the man he called father, maybe he'd come back and taken Syx away somehow. Or—

(isn't that what people like you do to things like me?)

Roxanne swallowed hard. No. No, that couldn't—

There was a sound like a wave breaking, and Syx appeared, his head and shoulders bursting up suddenly through the surface of the water in a spray of droplets.

"You came back!" he cried, sharp teeth showing in a brilliant smile, "Oh, I'm so glad!"

Roxanne laughed in relief.

"I told you I would," she said, smiling at him as he swam closer. "I'm glad you're still here."

Syx made a face as he stopped in the shallows in front of her. His tail gave a little flick.

"I told you," he said, "I can't leave."

"I—yes, I know," Roxanne said awkwardly. Of course she shouldn't have brought that up. "I—ah—I've been working on trying to find your father. I haven't, yet, but I've got a list of names. And I brought some things for you," she added.

Syx tilted his head curiously, neck frill flaring slightly.

"Things?" he asked. "What kind of things?"

Roxanne grinned at him. Syx had spent the last visit entertaining her with his inventions—she might not have any of that kind of thing to show him, but she still thought he'd enjoy what she'd brought with her.

"Come up to the sitting room," she said, "and I'll show you."

* * *

 _...to be continued._

* * *

 **Thank you all for continuing to read and review! I really appreciate your support.**


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